so today we're going to be reading I wandered lonely as a cloud by William Wordsworth take a minute to just pause this video and read the poem over on your own so I've assumed that you've paused this video and we're going to jump right in and analyze four essential elements of this poem and those are form devices tone and meaning so if we were to analyze the form of this poem we could see that the poem is written in four stanzas or four chunks of text and it's also written in iambic tetrameter which sounds really scary but actually it's just a pattern of syllables that poets sometimes use to give their pieces a bit more structure so fYI one I am is one unstressed syllable plus one stressed syllable and I am a tetrameter means that there are four Iams in each line of the poem when looking at the first line of the poem I wandered lonely as a cloud you can see that the text that is bolded and underlined shows those stressed syllables while the plain text is just the unstressed syllables so if I were to read this exaggerating the stressed syllables it would sound like this I wandered lonely as a cloud it sounds kind of silly but it shows that there are four I am Zin each line of the poem but why is this important I am back to trauma tur means that the poem sounds more harmonious and pleasing to the ear one Wordsworth uses the structure when analyzing form we also have to look at rhyme scheme so if we look at the last word of each line in the poem we can see that the rhyme scheme pattern is a b a b c c that also shows that the last two lines of each stanza form a couplet so now let's analyze the literary devices in the poem but it's not enough to just identify the devices we have to figure out the effect that they have on the column itself so the first thing that sticks out to me is that there's a simile in the first line the speaker compares himself to a cloud and that shows that there's a slight sad melancholy tone in the beginning the speaker seems like a lone observer who's just floating around and watching the world passively another simile occurs when the speaker compared to the daffodils to the stars that shine and twinkle on the Milky Way and this is really vivid imagery that shows the imagination of the speaker it also indicates that nature seems to possess a perfect pristine pattern he's comparing the star the constellation of the stars to this perfect pattern of daffodils another device that we can see is the hyperbole when the speaker states that he sees 10,000 daffodils in a never-ending line so that's not actually true the daffodils are not actually never-ending but it contributes to the overall effect that this is a wide expanse of daffodils another important device is personification so when the speaker gives human traits to inanimate objects that's really significant because it's showing that man and nature aren't as far apart as they seem I've highlighted some examples of personification in this poem we can see that the daffodils are dancing and fluttering which makes them seem really jovial and excited they're also tossing their heads in a sprightly dance while the waves are dancing beside them also reflecting the happiness of the daffodils and in the end the speaker's heart actually dances with the daffodils that shows that the speaker's own emotions reflect the beauty and the buoyancy of the scene around him now let's take a look at tone which is just the attitude of the speaker we can see that the speakers in all of the daffodils because they seem to lift his spirits he's really fascinated by the beauty of the scene and he's also very fanciful which is another for imaginative we can also see that the speaker transforms throughout the course of the poem in the beginning used the word lonely which has a negative connotation the speaker is lonely or sad because no one is around in the beginning of the poem but by the end he feels the bliss of solitude that's a transformation that shows that now the speaker is happy that he's alone he's happy that he can take a moment to just sit back and enjoy this experience we also have to look at diction or word choice when analyzing tone Wordsworth uses picturesque simple diction which sounds counterintuitive but hear me out he uses short easy-to-understand words such as twinkle sparkling solitude and pleasure to show the simple pleasure that he experiences when witnessing this scene now let's take a look at the meaning or message conveyed by this poem Wordsworth elaborates on the connection between man and nature showing that the speaker is overcome with a feeling of joy whenever he sees the daffodils this suggests that the natural world is able to evoke strong emotions such as aw which is a universal human experience also this is an indelible memory or an unforgettable memory for the speaker even when he's just sitting on his couch he's transported back to that moment of seeing the daffodils no matter where he is that also shows that he feels a spiritual connection to the natural world the speaker is also really imaginative he can see the scene in full color and his own inward eye or in his own mind and lastly but most importantly the speaker gains a new understanding he talks about the wealth that this show of daffodils has brought him but he's not talking about literal wealth as in money or riches he's talking about a new wealth of knowledge now the speaker understands that he can gain simple pleasure from something as small as a single flower please comment below and tell me if you'd like to see another video about poetry analysis and also tell me what other writing topics you'd like me to go over in another video please subscribe to join this writing community and I'll see you next time